Things to do in Sydney this weekend
Find all the best events on Friday, Saturday and Sunday
Stuff your weekend with brawn, we've compiled the meatiest collection of activities for you. Sip very posh wines at a boutique festival or enjoy a craft brew with a view of the zoo. In the mood for some sit-down entertainment? Check out the fringe gems at Bondi Feast or bunker down in The Ritz and watch some Hollywood classics. That's one spicy weekend.
What's on this weekend?
Every Dog Will Have Its Day
Emerging curators (and former MCA colleagues) Sophia Cai and Kathleen Lin have teamed up for an exhibition that puts the fun and play back in curation, and explores the relationship between humans and dogs. Every Dog Will Have Its Day brings together the work of ten artists from around Australia who explore dog/human relations in their work, in some cases for many years.
Unashamedly Original
A two-day festival of genre-defying music and art is taking over the City Recital Hall. Unashamedly Original celebrates the weirder side of music and art, with a line-up of artists whose work isn’t easily defined. The festival kicks off with the musically adventurous Speak Percussion and the first of their two festival performances, TRANSDUCER. Expect to re-evaluate your opinion of the humble microphone as they explore how the technology can be used as an expressive instrument in its own right.
Sydney Boutique Wine Fair
Stave off the winter blues by bunkering down in on of Sydney's favourite bottleshops for its own wine showcase. The Boutique Wine Fair is all about giving you the chance to try drops from some of the country's most exciting young winemakers – so think organic or biodynamic and minimal intervention makers – alongside the top importers. The Oak Barrel will also be opening up the backrooms to allow for plenty of room for tastings and discussions.
Zoo Brew Festival
Put it in your diary and double underline it: the highly anticipated Zoo Brew Festival is coming to Mosman’s Taronga Centre. The inaugural festival will feature a variety of local and much-loved craft brews from more than 20 breweries. The best part? The festival will take place beside the picture-perfect Harbour and Taronga Zoo. Your admission ticket will get into the Taronga Centre festival zone, a glass tasting cup, ten beer samples and a 50 per cent discount on zoo entry tickets.
Scandinavian Film Festival
The fourth Scandinavian Film Festival is now on with films from Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Sweden, screening at Palace Norton Street and Palace Verona. “It came about because Scandinavia makes so many amazing films and so many of them weren’t being picked up for distribution here, or even being picked up by the festivals,” says festival director Elysia Zeccola. “I think audiences are drawn to the dark tone of gripping Scandi noir dramas. The deadpan humour of Nordic comedies is also popular. Scandinavian films tend to have very well-drawn characters, the story is the main focus, not bells and whistles, and so I find myself getting absorbed in the drama.”
Shit
Patricia Cornelius’s new play is an outright provocation as the title suggests. It dares to put three female characters on the stage who are rarely if ever given a theatrical voice. Rough, rude and irrevocably damaged, they are the kind of people most theatre-goers would cross the street to avoid – but under the rich talents of the playwright and the extraordinary direction of Susie Dee, they make a compelling and heartbreaking subject.
Thais
If you've seen Nicole Car sing, then you'll know she's got the vocal chops to pull of this role – but does she have the naughty streak? She'll need it to play Egyptian courtesan Thaïs, whose powers of seduction are enough to divert the evangelising monk Athanaël from virtue to vice – or at least, lust. Singing opposite her is Québecois baritone Étienne Dupuis. This will be a one-night-only staged concert – no set design or props, just a costumed cast and orchestra. Single tickets for Thaîs are available from October 12. Until then, you can purchase tickets as part of a subscription. See what else is in the Opera Australia 2017 season.
Pyrmont Growers Market
The markets operate on the fourth Saturday of every month, running from 7.30am to noon, which means you can squeeze in a bacon and egg roll from Sutton Forest Meats – crisp rashers and a floury bun for $6 – and there’s still room for ginger ninja biscuits from Black Star Pastry. You can shop for fruit and veg from Roots Shoots and Leaves, fresh-cut flowers grown in Goldstone or wheels of Brie from Formaggi Ocello. There’s the Australian Gourmet Coffee Company, Little Marionette and Toby’s Estate for your caffeine hit. Plus, if you’re lucky, Egyptian food truck El Qahirah will be there dishing up fragrant bowls of koshary for $12.
1917: The Great Strike
This exhibition, curated by Carriageworks’ Nina Miall and City of Sydney historian Laila Ellmoos, brings together archival material and objects, oral history and newly commissioned art to explore the impact and legacy of the 1917 rail strike. The artists chosen to create work for the exhibition are Sydney-based artists Sarah Contos, Will French and Raquel Ormella, Melbourne artist Tom Nicholson (working with New York-based composer Andrew Byrne), and Darwin-based printmaker Franck Gohier.
Space and Ennui: Japanese Contemporary Dance
Family friendly, energetic Japanese performing arts shows are coming to the Japan Centre. Space & Ennui is a stripped back contemporary dance performance by two talents from Japan: Teita Iwabuchi and KENTARO!!. Iwabuchi infuses Japanese martial arts and butoh into contemporary choreography. KENTARO!! grew up learning street dance, decided to incorporate dramatic elements into his choreography after learning contemporary dance. Each 30-minute solo performance is followed by a Q&A.
Classic Hollywood at the Ritz Cinema
The Ritz in Randwick is one of Sydney's true architectural gems, built in 1937 and one of only two Art Deco cinemas left in Sydney. A visit here can bring lustre to any film. To mark the 80th birthday of the Ritz, they have programmed a season of nine all-time Hollywood greats spanning 1939 to 1967, all of them digitally restored and all of them must-sees for everyone who loves movies.
Brunch at Mrs Sippy
This Double Bay bar is doing a double shift on weekends when it goes into brunch-mode once the sun comes up. On Saturdays between 11am and 4pm you can enjoy bottomless Bloody Marys, rosé and sparkling along with a shareable breakfast menu. There's maple bacon sliders, Sydney rock oysters, barbecue king prawns and a brunch pizza with prosciutto, egg, heirloom tomato, ricotta and fresh basil.
Bondi Feast
Five editions in, Bondi Feast is looking a lot like Sydney’s “unofficial Fringe”: a curated festival of new independent work, unusual work, boundary-breaking work and experiments – all for the kind of price point where you the viewer can also afford to take risks. There's been an evolution from a theatre-focused festival into a more diverse program that includes cabaret and comedy. This year, around 30 shows were selected from more than 70 submissions.
Mauritius
In Pulitzer-nominated Theresa Rebeck's 2007 play, two sisters run aground in the surprisingly grubby arena of philately, after they inherit a stamp collection and attempt to cash in. In his review of the Broadway premiere of Mauritius, Time Out New York's Adam Feldman wrote: "Rebeck writes punchy dialogue and provides the requisite quota of who’s-zooming-who reversals, affording each character a fair share of venality; the show plays like a softer-nosed version of David Mamet’s rat-race dissections." This production is directed by Richard Cornally (The Credeaux Canvas; The Bench) and stars Brett Heath, Kitty Hopwood, Peter-William Jamieson, Emma Louise and Andy Simpson.
Jenny Watson: The Fabric of Fantasy
Using her daily experience and personal history as the subject, Jenny Watson paints female figures in a naive style, often with text alongside – thus deconstructing the idea of a 'painting' as a realist, singular image. Often these works are created on fabric. It hasn't always been so: in the early 1970s she painted in a realist style, using photographic sources – before transitioning to a more distinctive, personal style, influenced by the conceptual art movement. Watson's early work was also influenced by Melbourne's 1970s punk scene and New York's 1970s feminist movement.
Paddy's Night Market
Paddy's Markets in Flemington is throwing its hat into the ring with a huge night food market in their undercover carpark. Filling the cavernous space with over 25 vendors, free arcade games, and live music, they've given themselves the competitive edge in Sydney's vortex of night markets, filling their version with irresistible elements that are sure to beckon even the most frost-fearing of food truck aficionados out into the cold. Expect fried chicken from Maverick Wings and Dirty Bird, Instagram-friendly burgers from Chur and more. There'll also be retro video games, you can play for free.
Rye July at the Glenmore Hotel
While some people are doing Dry July, the Glenmore is offering a month of whisky appreciation designed to take the edge off the cold weather and help educate punters in the fine art of the distilled grain. A special whisky menu will be available throughout Rye July, culminating in a ticketed Night of Whiskies on Thursday July 13, where the Glenmore’s cosy middle level becomes whisky central with tastings, meet the makers, cocktail master classes and canapés matched with whiskies. (But before we go any further – yes, we’re aware that there’s two spellings for whisk(e)y – whisky if you’re talking Scotland and Canada, whiskey if it’s Ireland or the USA. For simplicity’s sake we’ll go with whisky here! Inconsistent spelling is just one of the interesting whisky facts you might pick up during July at the Glenmore.)
Sunday Bloody Sunday
The Clare Bar will transform into the ultimate destination for a hangover cure every Sunday. Kicking off at noon, the bar will be slinging $12 Bloody Marys, with a menu featuring different riffs on the tomato-based classic, including the Bloody Scotsman with Johnnie Walker Black and bacon bits and the Bloody Maria with Don Julio Blanco tequila and agave. Add in Single O coffee, roast chorizo sausage rolls, and fried chicken burgers and you've got a one-stop-shop for moving on up from the night before.
The Plant
There’s a new current of artistic energy this year at the Ensemble Theatre. The little theatre in Kirribilli seems to be spending its 2017 season grabbing audiences with pleasantly quirky stories and finely-observed performances, and The Plant is no exception. Like a Little Shop of Horrors that’s traded the grotesqueries of greed for the realities of grief, this leafy death drama will make your heart sing.
The Australian Artisan Cheese and Wine Experience
Eating cheese and drinking wine are both an easy tasks, but have you ever wanted to learn a bit more about these great culinary gifts? Then the Australian Artisan Cheese and Wine Experience is your chance to do that, on an island. This tour and gourmet moveable feast will showcase up-and-coming cheese and wine makers on Cockatoo Island, so you can try all the Gruyere, pinot grigio, cheddar and chardonnay you want. Cheese expert Claudia Bowman will be your guide for the day, taking you through canapés, a masterclass and tasting notes.
Shit
Patricia Cornelius’s new play is an outright provocation as the title suggests. It dares to put three female characters on the stage who are rarely if ever given a theatrical voice. Rough, rude and irrevocably damaged, they are the kind of people most theatre-goers would cross the street to avoid – but under the rich talents of the playwright and the extraordinary direction of Susie Dee, they make a compelling and heartbreaking subject. Billy (Nicci Wilks) opens the play with an expletive-fuelled rant that is hilarious and also politically charged. She barrages the audience with more fucks than prepositions – something even her friends Bobby (Sarah Ward) and Sam (Peta Brady) find over the top. Cornelius’s particular talent for turning flat realistic speech into a kind of heightened street verse is on immediate display. And as the women’s stories become clearer, as the abuse and marginalisation eat away at any hope we may have for them, the play’s real power comes to the fore. Despite the characters’ energy and vigour, the sense of despair and inevitable narrowing of options begins to choke them. They turn on each other, they mock each other’s attempts to imagine a better life, and eventually they egg each other into senseless and self-defeating violence. Cornelius’s play is in many ways a companion to her award-winning work Savages. That play was about four men aboard a cruise ship who channel their dissatisfaction and self-doubt into an act of random violence against an
1984
“You’re seeing yourself reflected in it because it’s opaque,” says a character in Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan’s slippery and intriguing adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984. “It’s a mirror. Every age sees itself reflected.” As the timelines layer and repeat within the production, and characters dissolve into each other, it becomes increasingly hard as an audience member to discern who said these lines or what it is, exactly, they’re speaking about. Is it someone in a book club, studying Orwell’s novel? Is it someone under the rule of the ideological Ingsoc, speaking about the rebellious book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism? Or is it someone, hinted at in Orwell’s appendix to the novel, who has survived Ingsoc and rejected Newspeak, and is studying the remnants of Winston Smith’s diary from that fabled year? We spend most of the play with Winston (Tom Conroy) as he uncomfortably navigates the regimented world of Oceania in 1984, but continually succumbs to its rules. When barked at by the voice from the telescreen, he obeys and bends over in an attempt to touch his toes. He goes to work and erases the records of people’s lives, shaping the past in the party’s favour. His rebellions are small, hidden, and largely inconsequential: in thoughtcrime, in a diary, in a secretive tryst. Weaving the appendix through the text, Icke and Macmillan make explicit a crucial part of Orwell’s intent: the knowledge that this society can fall. But even so, Winston and
Bondi Feast
Five editions in, Bondi Feast is looking a lot like Sydney’s “unofficial Fringe”: a curated festival of new independent work, unusual work, boundary-breaking work and experiments – all for the kind of price point where you the viewer can also afford to take risks. Having started as a project of Tamarama Rock Surfers (the now-defunct independent theatre company) in 2012, and after taking a year off in 2016, Bondi Feast is returning this year under the auspices of Waverley Council – and co-curated by founder, theatre-maker and Story Club regular Phil Spencer, with theatre maker Rachel Chant. Looking back across six years, Spencer sees an evolution from a theatre-focused festival into a more diverse program that includes cabaret and comedy. This year, around 30 shows were selected from more than 70 submissions – more than Spencer expected, and the highest calibre for Bondi Feast so far: “Obviously there’s a gap in the Sydney scene,” he says. In addition, Chant and Spencer invited a number of artists and shows they’d seen and loved (from the Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne Fringes, and elsewhere), including Melbourne comedian Tessa Waters, who will do a retrospective of her three shows; Demi Lardner, who will reprise her award-winning Melbourne Comedy Festival show Look What You’ve Made Me Do; Sami Shah reprising his show The Islamic Republic of Australia; and the hit Adelaide and Melbourne Fringe double bill Wank Bank and Pussy Play – a surprising mix of sex positivity, inter
The Rover
Aphra Behn was cooler than you. Not only was she a spy for King Charles II against the Dutch, she was also the first woman to make a living as a playwright. The Rover debuted in 1677, just a few generations after Shakespeare made his apparently indelible mark on the theatrical canon, and only a few years after the English Puritan regime lifted their 18-year ban on plays. And Behn wasn’t interested in writing a particularly polite or ladylike play now she had her stage. No, The Rover is a lusty, swashbuckling story of sex, desire, and love in Naples during the freewheeling Carnival. Sisters Hellena (Taylor Ferguson) and Florinda (Elizabeth Nabbben) want to escape their penned-in noble lives for the festival fray. Hellena craves at least one last night of freedom before she takes her religious vows, and Florinda plans to marry the man of her dreams before she’s stuck with the dud match her brother (Andre de Vanny) has selected for her. The sisters become entangled with a group of exiled English gentlemen: one is Florinda’s beloved Colonel Belville (Leon Ford); the others – his friends Frederick (Nathan Lovejoy) and Blunt (Gareth Davies) – are just along for the sex and canary wine. Also in Naples for a good time is Willmore (Black Sails star Toby Schmitz), the eponymous Rover. He’s hot and he knows it, leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake. The latest target? Well it’s either not-so-chaste Hellena or Angellica Bianca (Nikki Shiels), a famous courtesan. Missed connect
Mauritius
In Pulitzer-nominated Theresa Rebeck's 2007 play, two sisters run aground in the surprisingly grubby arena of philately, after they inherit a stamp collection and attempt to cash in. In his review of the Broadway premiere of Mauritius, Time Out New York's Adam Feldman wrote: "Rebeck writes punchy dialogue and provides the requisite quota of who’s-zooming-who reversals, affording each character a fair share of venality; the show plays like a softer-nosed version of David Mamet’s rat-race dissections." This production is directed by Richard Cornally (The Credeaux Canvas; The Bench) and stars Brett Heath, Kitty Hopwood, Peter-William Jamieson, Emma Louise and Andy Simpson.
The Dark Matters
A cloud hangs over White Rabbit’s foyer this autumn, a nebulous grey form by New York-based artist Lin Yan. Suspended from the ceiling by black strings (which she conceives of as rain), the piece is made from handmade ‘xuan’ paper – polluted with grey ink, tire tracks, brick rubbings and other vestiges of the industrial world. A smaller cloud form hands above it, almost at ceiling height; at the back of the foyer space hang long strips of pristine creamy-white xuan paper. The work, titled ‘Sky 2’, reflects the artist’s ongoing concern with pollution in Beijing. “Air is life,” she is quoted as saying, in the catalogue note. “When we destroy it, we destroy ourselves.” It’s an appropriate ‘headline act’ for White Rabbit’s show, titled ‘The Dark Matters’ – though in some ways it belies the overall tone of the show, which curator David Williams describes as “Zen”. Williams first had the idea for The Dark Matters during a visit to an artist’s studio in Beijing, in November 2015. “Most of the studios are really higgledy piggledy – but this was the most Zen space I’ve ever been to.” The artist, Shao Fan, designs furniture and paints in black (one of his elegant, minimalist tables has made it into the show, as a pedestal for another artist’s work). “That’s when I thought, let’s just do a really Zen show.” The resulting exhibition, it has to be said, is Zen by White Rabbit standards only (by comparison to preceding shows Vile Bodies, Heavy Artillery and Paradise Bitch, for exampl
Kader Attia
French-Algerian artist Kader Attia spent the early part of his career directly working with communities in and from Africa affected by colonisation and its aftermath. Perhaps it's no wonder then that he creates installation works that explore cultural exchange and the relationship between the West and the wider world. This survey, curated by the MCA's Rachel Kent, features sculptural installations and video works, including the 2007 installation 'Ghost', in which 160 life-size aluminium-foil figures appear to kneel at prayer in formation.
Making Modernism: O’Keeffe, Preston, Cossington Smith
This collaboration between Melbourne's Heide Museum of Modern Art, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum represents the first major body of work by the American modernist to be presented in Australia, alongside works by her Antipodean peers Margaret Preston and Grace Cossington Smith. All three women were pioneers of modernism, presenting bold new visions for art in their (very different) aesthetics. Around 30 works by each artist have been drawn from the collections of the presenting institutions, as well as the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, among others. A recent focus exhibition by Tate Modern re-ignited the debate around the erotic nature of O'Keeffe's paintings of flowers; while the academic and critical consensus has nipped the idea in the bud (and the artist denied it across her career), you can see why people might have speculated. Check out our hitlist of the best art to see in Sydney this month.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards and exhibition showcase not only the best of the natural world, but the patience, ingenuity and talent of the photographers who spend their time embedded within wildlife so that they can get that incredible, revealing shot. Judged by a panel of industry-recognised professionals, this year's 100 finalists were taken by some of the world’s best nature photographers and selected for their creativity, artistry and technical complexity.
Pipilotti Rist: Worry will vanish revelation
Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist is the subject of the Museum of Contemporary Art's 2017/2018 summer blockbuster – but you can get a taste of what to expect this Autumn, with the NGA's presentation of her 2014 work 'Worry Will Vanish'. The two-wall work, installed in a custom-built room with floor cushions, immerses the viewer in close-up images of nature and the human body. Time Out London wrote of the work: "Coddled and lying on the gallery floor, you can see vast projected visuals of dense vegetation all around you. These segue into glowing, veined caverns. Suddenly you’re back outside with the ferns, travelling at grass height before slipping inside once again to the pulsating, glowing tunnels. "Rist’s video yo-yos between the external and internal, the bucolic and the bodily. The tunnels are, in fact, (computer-generated) interior spaces of the body. At one point you’re at the tip of a toe that’s about to step into the sea, but you’re watching the scene from the inside. It puts a whole new spin on the idea of living in someone else’s skin." Check out our hit list for the best art in Sydney this month.
Comedy at Star Bar
Las Vegas Entertainment dishes out a rip-roarin' mix of comedy and live music every weekend in the centre of the CBD. Every Friday night you'll find the $10 Comedy Club, which showcases rising stars of the local scene alongside long-term residents. Saturday night is all about Bonkerz, which sees a full evening of experienced comics hitting the stage from 8pm. On the last Saturday of every month you can catch Magic Motown and the Whitney Houston Tribute Show featuring the Soulsville band. You can also make a night of it and add on dinner packages. Time Out readers can also get a special discount this month – simply mention Time Out Sydney at the door and you'll enjoy two-for-one seats at either the $10 Dollar Comedy Club or Bonkerz.
Happy Endings Comedy Club
Sydney's comedians are pretty fond of this cosy comedy club; more importantly – so are you, voting it Best Comedy Club for the last two Time Out Sydney Comedy Awards. With an intimate vibe and weekly shows featuring at least two names you know and guests you may not, Happy Endings also has the benefit of being beneath El Rocco Room, for pre-show noms or post-show beers.
Get ready for next weekend
Neil DeGrasse Tyson - A Cosmic Perspective
Generally speaking, any mention of astrophysics is likely to invite a round of yawns than to provoke cheers of excitement. However, the man working to change that is Dr Neil DeGrasse Tyson, an internationally renowned scientist, author and media personality who is gracing our shores this July with his tour.
On a budget?
Cheap things to do in Sydney
If you know where to look, you can get by in the city for a lot less than you'd think. We've got cheap meals for every day of the week, tips for getting your mitts on cheap theatre tix, op shops for bargain hunters and dating ideas for the tight of wallet.
